Elizabeth Barrett Browning, poet, drug addict, recluse and part of one of life's true love stories, used her poetry to explain her beliefs about life, love, religion, nature and, later in life, even politics. Through her sonnets, she could freely express and describe the feelings and thoughts that were close to her heart. Elizabeth Barrett Browning experienced much love and loss in her life and she used these events as inspiration for her writings, poems and sonnets, particularly the Portuguese sonnets, which are still popular and quoted today. Elizabeth Barrett was born to Edward and Mary Moulton-Barrett on March 6, 1806 in Durham, England. Elizabeth was the eldest of her parents' twelve children.1 Her father's successful Jamaican sugar plantations allowed the Barrett family to live a comfortable, upper-middle-class life. When Elizabeth was three, her family purchased a five-hundred-acre estate called Hope End, in Herefordshire, where she spent the next twenty-three years of her life.2Elizabeth never went to school. This was also a common practice at the time, as it was not considered necessary for women to be educated. She received all of her education at home where she read Paradise Lost and many Shakespearean plays before the age of ten. She listened to the instructions her brothers received from their guardians and used them to educate herself. Throughout her childhood, she taught herself Hebrew so that she could read the Old Testament in the original version because of her passion for Christianity.3When she was only thirteen years old, Elizabeth began her career literary by writing The Battle of Marathon, a book containing several epic poems, which his father had printed privately in 1820. In 1821, a...... middle of paper ......rk: Classic literature online , poems and quotes. Essays and summaries. Internet. February 15, 2012. “Elizabeth Barrett Browning.” Poets.org - Poetry, poems, biographies and more. Internet. February 2, 2012. .Liukkonen, Petri. “Elizabeth Browning.” Www.kirjasto.sci.fi. Internet. February 15, 2012. Nicoll, W. Robertson, LL.D. The Religious Views of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. London: privately printed, 1896. Parini, Jay. British Writers: Retrospective Supplement II. Boston, Charles Scribner's Son, 2002. “The relationship between Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning. » The Victorian Web: An Overview. Internet. February 15, 2012. .Scott-Kilvert, Ian. British Writers: Volume IV. New York: Charles Scribner's sons, 1981.